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Since the beginning of the year, we have been reporting on the acceleration of one of our Top Trends for 2022: Unionization.
The trend continues to accelerate:
CONDE NAST: Hundreds of workers at Condé Nast—the company behind magazines like The New Yorker and Vogue—announced last week that they formed a union and requested the NewsGuild of New York to be their collective bargaining representative.
The employees had been pushing for better pay, job security, and a stronger commitment to diversity from the company. The more than 500 employees called out what they see as the company’s “hypocrisy” when it comes to diversity in the workplace. (See “NY TIMES TECH WORKERS VOTE FOR UNIONIZATION, START OF ‘WAVE’ IN TECH INDUSTRY.”)
Susan DeCarava, the president of The NewsGuild of New York, said this is an opportunity for management to “work more collaboratively with employees and be held accountable in addressing long-standing concerns about equity, inclusion, fairness and diversity.”
“I’m excited to welcome these workers into the Guild and proud to join them in their fight to improve their workplace,” she wrote.
A Condé Nast spokesman told The New York Times that the company plans to “have productive and thoughtful conversations with them over the coming weeks to learn more.”
TREND FORECAST: Unionization will continue to be a Top Trend; the more limited the supply of workers made worse by “No Jab, No Job” mandates; (See “WANT TO KEEP YOUR JOB? GET THE JAB!” and “NO JAB, NO JOB. VACCINE MANDATES ‘WORKING’”), the more powerful the trend toward unionization will be.
February’s consumer price index was up 7.9 percent, which was the biggest jump in 40 years, and the price jump impacted household goods.
Inflation will continue to rise amid the growing conflict in Ukraine and sanctions leveled by the U.S. and NATO against Russia.
And, as inflation continues to rise faster than wages, corporations that wish to incentivize their workforce to do and give the best they can, will raise the pay scale to levels higher than inflation rates. In doing so, they will create atmospheres of mutual appreciation.
AMAZON: Employees at Amazon’s JFK8 facility on New York’s Staten Island voted last week to unionize, becoming the company’s first location in the U.S. to vote for union representation.
Employees at the location voted 2,654 to 2,131 in favor of unionizing, The Wall Street Journal reported. The National Labor Relations Board reported that more than 57 percent of the location’s eligible voters cast a ballot.
Chris Smalls, who Amazon fired in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak after he led a protest outside the warehouse, popped a bottle of champagne outside NLRB offices after the vote was tallied.
“Today the people have spoken and the people wanted a union,” he told supporters, according to The Gothamist. The website said he was asked what he would say to Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, and the former supervisor at the facility said, “We wanna thank Jeff Bezos, cause while he was up in space we was signing people up.”
(Smalls led a rally outside the location when he expressed concern that the company was not doing enough to keep workers safe. He was subsequently fired.)
As much as the victory was for workers at the location, there also seemed to be other motivating factors for Smalls. Vice reported that after he was fired, top executives at the company heard that Small was “not smart, or articulate” and they wanted to frame the fight as though it was the company against Smalls, which executives thought would play better in public.
“Chris has been focused on making Amazon regret that ever since,” Jacobin magazine reported.
We have pointed out that no Amazon location has ever successfully voted in favor of unions and this Staten Island facility—like many—has a high turnover rate. The work-life of many of these employees involves the preparation of hundreds of packages an hour, and burnout is common.
Unions need support from at least 30 percent of eligible workers in order to hold an official election under the supervision of the U.S. The workers at that Staten Island warehouse voted 55 percent in favor of joining the union.
Amazon told the BBC that it was disappointed by the result and accused the NLRB of improperly influencing the vote.
“We believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees,” the company said. “We’re evaluating our options, including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the [National Labor Relations Board],” the company said.
NPR reported that Amazon spent millions on labor consultants to fight the campaign. The report also said the company held mandatory meetings, urging them to vote No.
TRENDPOST: On the same page of The Wall Street Journal’s report, the paper ran a story about Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy pulling in $212.7 million in 2021. The paper pointed out that it was his first year as head of the company. Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, is still the executive chairman. Bezos pulled in $5 billion in 2021.
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the push by Amazon employees to unionize. (See “AMAZON WORKERS VOTE TO UNIONIZE,” “AMAZON WORKERS WILL HOLD VOTE TO UNIONIZE, A TOP TREND FOR 2022,” and “AMAZON UNIONIZATION: 2022 TOP TREND ON THE RISE”).
ALASKA AIRLINES : Pilots for Alaska Airlines have picketed over more flexible schedules, job security, and better pay—prompting hundreds of flights to be canceled.
There were hundreds of flight cancellations at the start of the weekend and an additional 69 flights on Sunday morning, which KOMO News reported is about nine percent of its overall number. The airline canceled 120 flights on Friday.
Picket lines emerged in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Anchorage, according to The Wall Street Journal. There was also a picket outside its headquarters in Seattle.
Alaska Airlines has been negotiating with the AirLine Pilots Association since 2019 about pilots’ concerns regarding wages, time off, and schedules. The union’s executive council said in a statement that the company “failed to properly plan for increased travel demand and take the steps necessary to ensure it attracted and retained pilots.”
As of Sunday, the airline said about 15,300 passengers were impacted by the strike. Some took to social media to express their dismay about having their flights canceled with such short notice.
A spokesman for the pilots’ union told KOMO News Friday both sides were expected to meet with a federal mediator on Tuesday in an effort to resolve the crisis.
Alaska Airlines said in a statement that it appreciates “the patience of our guests.”
“We apologize for the inconvenience and frustration we have caused because so many travel plans have been disrupted. We keep working hard to get everyone to their destinations as quickly as we can,” the statement read.
Will McQuillen, a pilot and union chairman for Alaska Airlines’ pilots, told King 5 that these talks have been ongoing since 2019. He told the station that the goal of the “informational picket,” is to raise awareness to pilots’ struggles.
“Attrition is a real concern. Pilots will leave for the carrier of their choice that provides them the quality of life, the ability to be home with their family and the protections to know once they’ve invested their career that they will be with that carrier for life,” he said.
TREND FORECAST: The Trends Journal had forecast a shift to unionization after the COVID-19 War began, when major companies saw record profits and stock prices, while the vast majority of their employees toiled in low-paying jobs with little hope of career advancement. (See “UNIONIZATION: TOP TREND FOR 2022, ON-TREND,” “ACTIVISION STUDIO GROUP WILL FORM A UNION, SOLIDIFYING TRENDS JOURNAL FORECAST” and “SPOTLIGHT: WORKERS ON DEMAND.”)